UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWith the clock ticking down to the general election on 4 July, the major parties are facing a race to win over voters before polling day.The Conservatives and Labour have been battling it out on issues such as the economy, immigration and national security so far and the parties’ leaders, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, are also set to square off in TV debates.ITV announced on Wednesday that the first head-to-head general election debate between the pair will take place on ITV1, ITVX and STV and STV Player on Tuesday 4th June at 9pm.The hour-long debate, Sunak v Starmer: The ITV Debate, will be moderated by Julie Etchingham. It will take place live in front of a studio audience and will be made and produced by MultiStory Media, part of ITV Studios.Sunak and Starmer will take part in two televised debates More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightLabour’s plans to end tax emptions for fee paying independent schools cannot be challenged in the courts because of Brexit, a leading expert has claimed.Dan Niedle, founder of thinktank Tax Policy Associates, has warned that Reform UK leader Richard Tice’s plans to challenge Labour in the courts will fail because of his previous successful campaign to leave the European Union.Labour want to end the charity status of private schools meaning that parents will have to pay 20 percent VAT on top of the already eye watering annual fees which, according to financial advisers St James Place, averaged £20,480 for day pupils and £34,790 for boarders in 2022.There are believed to be around 615,000 children in the UK’s 1,300 independent schools, some 7 per cent of all British school-age children and 18 per cent of pupils over the age of 16. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was a ‘social democrat’ when asked if she was a socialist (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA white Labour candidate who publicly apologised after making a racist joke privately described criticism of the incident as a “smear campaign” against him, The Independent can reveal.Darren Rodwell, whose rant was compared to a racist comedy show in the mid-1970s, said at the time his remarks were “extremely stupid and embarrassing”.“I deeply apologise to anyone that I have offended,” he said after a clip of the 2019 remarks surfaced in October 2022.But, just days later, an email seen by The Independent reveals he told a potential constituent that he was in fact being smeared. Darren Rodwell, who is white, said he has ‘the worst tan possible for a Black man’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailDiane Abbott says she has been barred from standing as a Labour candidate at the general election.The veteran Labour MP had the party whip restored on Tuesday, but will not be able to stand for it on 4 July, she told the BBC.Ms Abbott was suspended last April over a letter she wrote in The Observer suggesting Jewish people are not subjected to the same racism as some other minorities.The former shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn immediately apologised over her comments and said the letter had been an “initial draft”.Diane Abbott has confirmed she is barred from standing for Labour in the general election More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak is pledging to create 100,000 more apprenticeships a year by shutting down “rip-off degrees” as he battles to remain in No 10.The prime minister wants to see the worst-performing university courses replaced with high-skilled apprenticeships if the Conservatives retain power after the General Election.He will say that his party is “offering our young people the employment opportunities and financial security they need to thrive” as he seeks to narrow Labour’s double-digit lead in the polls.Rishi Sunak said ‘improving education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for boosting life chances’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak’s proposal to enforce national service for teenagers is “hare-brained” and would only serve to deplete Britain’s defence capabilities, a former head of the Royal Navy has warned.Writing in The Independent, the former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West, said the Tories’ general election plan showed Mr Sunak did not understand the level of danger the UK currently faces.In their first major policy pledge since Mr Sunak hastily announced the election on Wednesday, the Conservatives unveiled plans to reintroduce national service, with school leavers being given the option of either joining the military for a year or doing part-time voluntary service in the community.In what has widely been seen as a bid to attract Reform voters, the policy – rejected by a government minister only days earlier as a drain on military resources – would see 30,000 teenagers given full-time roles in the armed forces each year.The Tories pledged to set up a royal commission to work out the details if elected on 4 July, but insist their plan would cost £2.5bn – and propose raiding key levelling up and post-EU funding to pay for it.But Lord West, who was First Sea Lord from 2002 to 2006, warned that “anyone with the most basic experience of how much it costs, and what it entails, to turn a new recruit into someone that can usefully serve in our armed forces would not need a royal commission to tell them that the proposal as currently presented is utter nonsense”.“This ill-thought out conscription scheme will increase pressure on defence and waste money,” the former Navy chief wrote, adding: “Rather than enhancing our defence capability, it would further reduce it.”Britain’s military has shrunk by a third and satisfaction with service life, pay and morale have plunged across the board since the Tories entered power in 2010, Lord West said – accusing Mr Sunak of having ignored these while chancellor and only acting in the headlights of a general election. Rishi Sunak ‘does not understand the level of danger that our country is facing’, warned Admiral Lord West More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has announced that 18-year-olds would be made to do national service if the Tories win the general election.It is the Conservatives’ first major policy proposal since Mr Sunak hastily announced the general election in the pouring rain on Wednesday afternoon, with his party now scrambling to find some 190 candidates amid a post-war record exodus of Tory MPs.The prime minister insisted on that his plans for mandatory national service would help unite society in an “increasingly uncertain world” and give young people a “shared sense of purpose”. In an apparent pitch to older voters, Mr Sunak said that volunteering could include helping local fire, police and NHS services, as well as charities tackling loneliness and supporting elderly and isolated people.Below we look at what we know about the plans so far. How would Rishi Sunak’s National Service scheme work?Much of the detail remains unclear, with the Tories saying they would set up a royal commission bringing in expertise from across the military and civil society to establish how the scheme would work in practice.This commission would be tasked with bringing forward a proposal for how to ensure the first pilot is open for applications in September 2025, and the Tories would then seek to introduce a new “National Service Act” to make the measures compulsory by the end of the next parliament.But broadly, the party said that young people would be given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year “volunteering,” in their community.Teenagers who choose to sign up for a placement in the forces would “learn and take part in logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations”, the Tories said.Rishi Sunak met with veterans at a community breakfast during a party campaign event on Saturday More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour has unveiled its first big general election offering on workers’ rights with a pledge to end discrimination on sick pay facing low-paid employees.Just 24 hours after wooing more than 120 business leaders with their economic plans, the Labour leadership is seeking to calm union concerns that they will water down their promises on workers’ rights.The intervention on sick pay will help an estimated 1.5 million who are not covered by the rules and either have to work through illness or stay at home without financial support.The move is part of a delicate balancing act by Sir Keir Starmer to show that he is on the side of both business and working people. His shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves on Tuesday promised to deliver “a government that is pro-worker and pro-business, in the knowledge that each depends upon the success of the other”.Angela Rayner will promise to scrap the lower earnings limit for statutory sick pay More